DAY 16
What is reality? Obviously no one can say, because it isn't words. It isn't material, that's just an idea. And the longer you live, the more you realize that the only things that truly exist in this reality are merely pain, suffering and futility. Everywhere you look in this world, wherever there is light, there will always be shadows to be found as well. As long as there is a concept of victors, the vanquished will also exist. Hatred is born in order to protect love. Without that love, nothing is born. Barren consciousness. Time to wake up.*
Cato didn't think he would. After killing Thresh, he had passed out from bloodloss, welcoming the darkness. But somehow his eyes opened the next day. And the tear around his ribs had dried up, forming a thick scab pulling at the hedges of his stab wound. It wouldn't hold. When he came back to his senses, Cato had grabbed the bag Thresh took from them at the feast. Inside he had found a Capitol made armor, absolutely unpenetrable. But even with that to hold his intestines together, the lesion still wouldn't stick together much longer. And if Cato knew anything about medecine, he'd realize the red starting to spread on his stomach showed first signs of infection. The physical pain had subsided in favor of his emotional hollowness. So he couldn't feel that it was the contagion from an untreated cut making his hallucinations grow. Instead he had thought it was his unforgivable crimes contaminating his mind with visions of death. Beheaded necks, empalled torsoes, lifeless eyes... All those eyes tourmenting him, following his pace through the infernal woods. The pair staring the hardest was brown.
Wandering without purpose, Cato let his legs pave the way back to the Cornucopia while his mind was being pulled appart. He thought maybe dying there would be the most entertaining way to go. Even better, maybe it would push someone to come finish him off that he could take to the great beyond with him. In general, Cato wasn't thinking much he was just walking forward blankly.
Suddenly a canon fire yankes him back to consciousness. Who could it be ? No way to know before the evening, when the face of another dead child would light up the dark sky. But it makes Cato realize something else. With this tribute and Thresh gone, they were three left. If Peeta and Katniss are still alive, they only had to kill him to go home as per the new rules. Evidently, if only one of the two had survived along with the redhead girl, there was still only two murder left on the menu. Either way. Three left.
After days of lethargy, something tugs at Cato's heart. It sends shockwave from the tip of his skull to the nerve endings at his feet. Giving up this close to the end... Clove would have punched him in the face. If Cato was the one with the snapped neck, he wouldn't have been able to forgive her for giving up so easily after doing so much to protect her. Now that she was gone, he didn't want to live anymore. But what if she wasn't? She was his reality, and without that he wasn't anything. But a part of her still lived on. She whispered it to him in the cave: "That's why I volunteered. I wanted to sacrifice to save you." She was ready to die so he could live. Only the new rules had made them believe both would make it outside. Before that, they never thought they would. And just like him, she still wished to come into the arena and sacrifice for love. Even with her gone, her wish was still alive. Because he was still alive.
For Clove he had to respect that wish, or he was saying her love had meant nothing.
With a shaky breath, Cato lifts his armour to look at his wound. It was ugly. Uglier than the snake bite, turning green and puss giving out an acre smell. Without medical attention, it was going to kill him. If he was to decide to try to save himself for her, it would have to be quick. That cut couldn't wait a couple more days. With a newfound determination, Cato walks up to a tree and cut off a branch to use as a stick. Next on his list was to hurry back to the Cornucopia. If you took into account the storm created to bring him and Thresh together, the Gamemakers would come up with another idea to push the three tributes left to the same spot in the arena. If he showed himself before they put their distraction in motion, he wouldn't have to worry about another unknown factor.
With that in mind, he sticks his baton into the ground and pushes on it, propelling himself forward and leaving his feverish demons behind. Or at least some of them.
*
At a steady pace, Cato reaches the clearing by nightfall. Incredible considering the fifty hours it took him to get to the wheatfield. Even if the Gamemakers were making the days shorter as it went on, at least they wouldn't launch a new design in the night. It was bad for ratings if the audience of Panem couldn't see the clever unnatural disaster they came up with.
Cato would soon realize how wrong he had been. For now he was pondering going back to the cave to rest, get a good night of sleep as respite for the ravings that have been tormenting him all day. He was tired, and hadn't eaten in days. He'd found some berries and water on the way, but he threw them back up as soon as they fell on his empty stomach. There was a very slim chance of him getting out of here, and he'd need to store some energy to pull it off. There was two tributes left to take care off, likely including Katniss who would still be a threat if she went for a headshot. The armor only covered his torso from his neckline to his crotch. The sword was still an advantage, perhaps why he unconscioulsy picked it up after killing Thresh. Although, his wound made it hard to swing it at full force.
But even to get his strenght back, the thought of going to the cave made him want to throw up again. The shape of their love was painted all over the walls, in every crevice of that damp dark place.
Cato was pondering climbing in a tree when branches rustled in the distance. Contrary to ambush predators that rely on the element of surprise and a short and intense burst of energy to secure their prey, wolves are endurance or coursing predators. They chase their prey over longer distances in order to find the right opportunity to attack. When close enough, they move to bite it in the neck area. Then all significant pieces of muscles, including those lining of the stomach, are eaten. Ribs typically, bones partially, and nearly all the hide commonly consumed.
But as much as they might eat him the same, the pack of wolf-like creatures the Gamemakers had just released in the arena wouldn't wait for the right moment to hunt him down. No fear he could overpower them, they were already on him not giving him a chance to run away. These creatures were able to balance on their hind legs allowing for very high jumps. Pommel in hand, Cato was slicing frantically trying to put some distance between the mutts and him with every attack. Muttations were the name given to genetically modified animals created by the Capitol. Used partly for the games, he never thought the Gamemakers were so desperate for this to end. In his studies of the previous Hunger Games, Cato had never seen creatures like that. Especially none so lethal. His sword seemed pathetic in comparison for the four-inch long razor-sharp claws shining in the dark on each of their paws.
He was frantically poking them, barely drawing blood, trying to run away at the same time. But it was not use, he was growing weaker and more exhausted. The stab wound had reopened, spilling guts on the forest floor. The worst part was that they kept coming. First they'd been three, now there were five. He didn't know how long he could hold them off before others came to tear him appart. It was an awful way to die, if he had to pick he would have rather gone in the wheat field with Thresh.
Then he notices something weird about the mutts. Beside that they were creatures capable to stand on their legs like humans, each of their hide was a different colour. From brown, passing by blond, to red. But that wasn't it. Something else didn't add up. Wolf sclera's, the part around the Iris, was brown almost black. The Capitol mutts sclera's was white, like a human. Their eyes were human.
That's when it hits him. Each of the mutts resembled one of the tributes who had died previously in the Games. Looking closer he could see they each had a collar marked with the district number of the tribute, matching the color of their hair to the animal's hide. This realisation almost knocks him off his feet, throwing his world spinning madly. At this point he wants drop his weapon and let the muttation he had just stabbed in the shoulder blade bite his head off. Because he knows that before being able to stop himself, he would be searching for her among the crazed animals.
And he does find her. Even in the thick darkness of the woods, Cato can see the shining black of her hair. Among the five mutts sent after him, she is the smallest. They had mimicked her shape, but also her stealth and capacity for murder. Her mutt alter-ego was one of the fastest and most vicious. Cato had already cut into the side of her neck twice, but she kept coming back. At him. For him.
Cato was about to give up. He couldn't do it any longer, it was too much. They had taken so much from him, turning her into a monster that would haunt his dreams for ever was inhuman. Apologizing for betraying her wish, Cato lowered his sword, surrendering his life. But in the same instant, just above the murderous snout decorated with teeth, he finds her eyes. The two eyes that had followed him every second of every day since her death. But tonight, they weren't lifeless. Her brown eyes were truly alive like he had prayed for so many times to an empty god since she had left him. In Panem, President Snow was the god and he indeed had put life back into the eyes of his love. It didn't mean that life had a soul, it was empty of any thought besides tearing him appart.
His own soul already empty after she'd left so much room with her passing, was torn to pieces. He couldn't have her look at him like that. He didn't care if he died, that he was sure off, but he couldn't leave this world while Clove looked at him with hatred.
So with one final grunt, Cato pushes off the other mutts giving him enough time to run at Clove. In one swift strong blow, he plunges his sword into her head. All the way up to the pommel where the strand of Clove's hair tied there shines right between her eyes. And for the second time, Cato witnesses the life spill out of them. The razor-sharp claws decorating her paws now pludged in his stomach were doing the same to him. It was fair.
When the mutt slumps to the ground, pulling its he claws out of him in its fall, Cato starts to run. Run as far from her body as possible. He didn't want to see another overcraft take her away. The pain, the loss, the grief. All that he had avoided was coming back, hitting him in the face like a train at full speed. Squizzing his chest, burning his lungs, cutting his legs leaping for the Cornucopia. If he climbed there he could die bleeding out. He wouldn't have to be eaten alive, and he could die from a wound she gave him. Clove would be the one taking him to the other side.
Smashing through the forest in pitch darkness, Cato can see two small trees that don't fit in the scenary. That's because they are not, it's two humans. They are both alive. District Twelve. Rapidly getting closer, Cato can see how the look on Katniss' face and her body language change as he barels on them. Reflexively, she moves in front of Peeta and arms her bow. They are so afraid of him they can't hear the more deadly creatures tailing him. It's not his role to explain. They are in his way to the horn and either they move or he'll run over them offering the mutts a better meal.
Katniss' first arrow hits Cato's chest and falls aside. Her mouth opens wide: "He's got some kind of body armor!"
Soon he is upon them, forcing both tributes to brace themselves for his attack. Which never comes. When the boy from Two rockets right between Twelve with no attempt to check his speed, he can tell Kantiss finally catches up with the situation. Cato has been running hard a long time, and not toward them. But from something. Soon they are stumbling blindly after their enemy, leaping to escape the creatures reaching on the plain. Tripping on the roots trying to hold them back to be shredded alive by the forest and its monsters.
Without question they are following him making a beeline for the Cornucopia, his fear of a painful death helping them to survive a little longer. So when the first lights of daybreak appears in the distance as he climbs onto the metallic contraption, the incongruous situation makes Cato smiles through the flood of tears chocking him. It is a mad world.
___
* Quote in Overthinker and Naruto